For me, the biggest success is that my garden looks much tidier and is much easier to work with than it was at the beginning of the year. I drafted in my husband to help and together we cleared all the existing beds and dug up a new one.  I am finally free from planting in pots!  I also pulled up some of the patio so now we even more space for growing vegetables. My first batch of homemade compost was ready and I have been spreading it over the beds (I am letting the weather and the worms do the hard work!) so hopefully the soil is gradually improving. I also installed a waterbutt and a second compost bin.

There were a few other highlights worth mentioning. The most surprising (I jumped out of my skin!) was finding a toad hiding in my potato planters!  We have no idea where he came from, but he hung around for a couple of days and then disappeared again.  In August, I was given an apple tree for my birthday, complete with 2 apples growing on it, which has now been planted in its new home. I also had fantastic crops of tomatoes, garlic and potatoes. I had grown tomatoes and potatoes last year, but it was my first time growing garlic this year and I was surprised how easy it was.

I have been busy experimenting as well. I got a mini-growhouse so I could start sowing seeds earlier in the year, which was fantastic. What was not so fantastic was when it blew over on a windy day and all the seedlings were scattered across the garden, so now I have a large bucket of stones on the bottom shelf acting as an anchor. Also after about mid-May it started to get too hot, and many seedlings just shrivelled up and died, so next year I will remember to take the cover off once the weather gets warmer. I also tried using lemonade bottles (with the bottoms cut off) as mini-cloches for seedlings that I had planted out. This helped to protect them from the weather as well as my cats and the army of slugs that live in my garden, and worked really well. I also found that loo rolls, cut in half across the middle, make great seedling pots.

There were also quite a lot of plants that completely failed. I won’t list them all (it’s a looong list!) but the main reasons were: being blown over in the mini-growhouse; being eaten by slugs; being dug up by my cats; and getting too hot in the mini-growhouse. I have dealt with 1 and 4 from the list now, and for number 2 I have found Slug Stop (white, non-toxic granules) works really well. Apart from the lemonade bottle cloches, I haven’t yet come up with a plan to protect plants from the cats, so this will be an aim for next year.

And finally, as I try and decide what seeds to order for this season, this is what I am planning/looking forward to (among other things) in 2010:

• My first rhubarb harvest – planted this year, so a long wait!
• Trying different varieties of tomatoes, especially plum and cherry varieties.
• Apples from my apple tree.
• Working out how to stop my cats digging everything up!
• Being self-sufficient in garlic, having planted some of the bulbs from this summer’s harvest.

Related posts:

1. Autumn Gardening
2. Sustainable Gardening Tips
3. Folia: Facebook for Gardeners